


at the end of the sea (is the sky)

by honeypressed



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Injury, Established Relationship, Fluff, Healing, Magical Realism, Mentions of injuries/blood, No Plot/Plotless, chanlix getting better because gia made me cry, healing process, honestly idk its just me enabling myself to write gorgeous mermaid felix and whipped chan, plotless fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26781520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeypressed/pseuds/honeypressed
Summary: We’re getting better, Felix had said, twenty days after he had swallowed his own fears to patch Chan up.Chan thinks about what that means, and what Felix means to him, especially when he is no longer a knight and Felix is no longer a prince.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Comments: 3
Kudos: 49





	at the end of the sea (is the sky)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onhos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onhos/gifts).
  * Inspired by [kissing the shoreline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236480) by [onhos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onhos/pseuds/onhos). 



> i wrote this because gia is incredible at world building and mermaidlix is too pretty not to write and wax poetic about so here it is!!! gia i hope you like this little thing <333 i just wanted to show you that your universes aren't abandoned when you close this particular chapter on them ^^ they exist even more tangibly than ever before <33
> 
> tw for slight blood + injury mentions
> 
> i hope this is enjoyable, as always!

_ 我终于 明白 失去你 _

_ 永恒 不过 是 无边的荒凉 _

* * *

The nightmares have become increasingly rare; this is something Chan didn’t expect to happen. Not this fast, at least. He still wakes up shaking, hair matted to his forehead with cold sweat and the phantom wounds on his body aching until he can’t breathe - but they’re happening with less and less frequency as the days bleed away. It’s even better when Felix tells him that his own nightmares have started to fade away too, dissolving from his nights until they’re dreamless and when he wakes he only remembers the beauty of this human realm. 

“We’re getting better,” Felix remarks one day when they’re sitting in a cafe near the beach. It's such a casual comment but the truth of it takes a while to sink into Chan's consciousness. 

They are getting better. 

In tiny slow steps - but they  _ are _ . It's visible in many ways, and Chan begins to count these things, just for the sake of it.

The wounds on his body, for example, start to fade away. The stitches that Felix had spent so long on are doing their work, and his wounds have scabbed over and become itchy; now, the scab has fallen away to reveal scars on his body that will never really go away. 

The way he can kiss Felix without the sinking feeling that one day he’ll be the one to hurt Felix, to relive that one moment when he had been left alone again and the shattering feeling that it really was his end then.

The smile on Felix’s face, the one that had brought him so much happiness - they return more and more frequently until Chan loses count and instead he has to try to attempt and quantify the amount of light and happiness that he has these days.

These scars will always remind him of home and the pain he went through - but he doesn't regret any of it. Not when he's able to hold Felix's hand without the heavy weight of guilt pulling him down like gravity.

“What are you thinking about?” Felix asks, one morning. The sky is a shade of the brightest blue and the clouds look like spun cotton candy. If Chan concentrates hard enough, the clouds look like the messy blankets on Felix’s bed after their nights of holding each other, dreamless.

“You,” Chan says truthfully. It’s something he’s working on, trying not to lie - even a white lie - and it’s not easy when he’s used to lying for his own safety, but he thinks he’s making improvements. 

“What about me?” 

“Everything about you,” Chan replies, and Felix’s hand squeezes his. “I didn’t think I would be able to hold your hand like this.”

“But you can now,” Felix murmurs, runs his other hand over Chan’s knuckles where they’re rough and scarred. It’s like silk against stone, and Chan wonders how long more will it be until Felix’s hands are no longer soft.

“I’m never going to stop being thankful that I can,” Chan says, quiet in tone but fierce with affection.

And right then, when Felix smiles, it is like watching the gentle dawn of the sun in the morning.

* * *

They go to the beach a few weeks after everything happens. It’s strange in the way that for them, it is a whole world closing while they adjust to this human realm again; for everyone else, normal life simply goes on. Their friends ask concerned questions about Chan’s injuries and the way he had showed up on Felix’s shared doorstep  _ dripping _ in blood, but they wave it all off. 

_ It was just personal business _ , Chan says, and he had moved on in that way that he had learned to after being in the human realm for so long.

“Do you think we’re ever going to tell them about all of this one day?” Felix asks.

Chan notes the  _ we _ of that sentence and his heart warms. “One day, when we’re hurting less, maybe,” Chan says, and there is real hope in his words. 

Today, the sky and the sea are of the same shade, reflecting each other like a perfect mirror; the rippling of the waves are the only way to tell the two apart, thin stripes of foamy white breaking over the clear, glossy blue.

They’re at the end of the beach where the rocks are, curved round and hidden away from sight of the rest of the beach. Here, they are alone, secluded from the rest of the world, and it’s like creating a little piece of their birthplace in this human realm that is their new home for as long as it will take them.

And here, where the world is only the two of them, Felix’s tail sparkles in the sunshine. 

There is pink, but there is also red and orange, and the golden of the sunlight ripples over his scales, makes each one reflect the light around Felix until it seems like he’s glowing. When Felix dips his tail into the shallow waters, the pink shimmers in the clear green, a different kind of bright that still makes Chan look at him only.

Love has a name and a face, Chan thinks to himself, and sits down carefully next to where Felix has perched himself upon some rocks, tail swishing in the ebb and flow of the waves. 

“Are you going to swim?” 

“Not today,” Felix says, eyes trained on some place far away in the sky; from where Chan is sitting, he doesn’t need to look at the sky to see what Felix is looking at. “I’ll swim when you get better.”

“You don’t need to wait for me,” Chan says after half a beat, the words taking a bit of time to sink in. “It’s going to take a while for these wounds to get better.” The entire sky is in Felix's eyes.

“I know,” Felix replies, and now he turns to look at Chan, hand reaching out to hold Chan’s. “I know.”

* * *

It takes three months for his stitches to dissolve away.

It takes longer for his friends to regain their trust in him. 

“Get out of my face,” Minho grits out when Chan meets Felix at the entrance of their lecture hall, holding a cup of coffee as he always did. When Chan hesitates but doesn’t move away, Minho glares at him, straightening up to his full height. “I  _ said _ , get lost, Bang.” 

“Hyung,” Felix murmurs quietly, presses on Minho’s shoulder. “We’re okay. We’ve talked about it, we’re fine.”

Minho looks at Felix then, trusting but unsure. “Well… I can’t stop you from doing anything - but Bang, if I so much as see you around I swear to god I’ll deck you.”

“I deserve as much,” Chan admits, and his hand shakes with the weight of the coffee; Minho’s eyes, sharp, glance from the unusual shake of his hand to the way he’s standing stiffly and shifting his weight from leg to leg. “I understand if you don’t forgive me, Lee-ssi, but I promise I’ll never make Felix cry again.”

There’s a moment of silence, then - “I don’t know what happened,” Minho says carefully, “but maybe it’s time you start taking care of yourself, Bang. I’m going now. See you, Felix.” 

“See you, hyungie,” Felix calls, then turns to Chan. “You didn’t need to come and see me, you’re still injured! What if you tear your stitches open, or you overstrain yourself -” 

“I’m a lot better already,” Chan reminds him, presses the coffee into Felix’s hands. “C’mon, let’s go have lunch or you’ll miss your next class and that won’t be my fault.

It’s strange to think how just a few months ago he had been tangled up in another world, magic and wars and blood, and now he’s here, university drop-out and watching his boyfriend - not the prince of the kingdom, just his  _ boyfriend _ \- eat lunch, eyes bright and babbling about his lecture. 

_ We’re getting better _ , Felix had said, twenty days after he had swallowed his own fears to patch Chan up. 

And now, sitting here in this mundane daily routine - it is the best that Chan has ever wanted. There is only so much he has been wanting for after all these years, and now he has most of them within his grasp. 

“I love you,” Chan says abruptly just as they head out of the cafeteria and when they should be parting to go do their own things. "I love you a lot, Lix."

Felix laughs at that, a surprised, pleasant laugh that Chan wants to hear again and again and again for the rest of his life. "I love you too, hyung." He doesn't ask why Chan suddenly says this. "Are you coming over later? I'm making brownies." He expresses love in his own way. 

"Of course I will," Chan says, and once upon a time he wouldn't have been able to lean in and kiss Felix. But he isn't a knight, and he isn't in a world where princes and fairytales and magic exists. 

So he does. He leans in to kiss Felix - a sweet  _ see you later _ against each other's lips - and then they go their own ways; Felix to class, Chan to an interview. 

The world that had birthed them might have been closed to them forever, but at the end of that world is another one that is kinder to them. And after all, they still have each other. The words of  _ the end _ only really stops the story when they want it to. 

They live on.

**Author's Note:**

> the lyrics at the beginning are taken from the chinese ost version of the king: eternal monarch titled 'dream' and sung by svt's jun! here is the translation: "I finally understand that (after) losing you, forever is nothing but endless desolation"
> 
> my [Tumblr](https://yeongwonlino.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/yeongwonlino/)!!


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